


All These Moments Were Lost In Time, Like Tears In A Storm

by metaphasia



Category: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Prince/Farah if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 06:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17017599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metaphasia/pseuds/metaphasia
Summary: The Dark Prince was only ever a mirror, reflecting the worst qualities of the Prince. But regardless of how warped a mirror is, it can still only reflect what is there in the first place.





	All These Moments Were Lost In Time, Like Tears In A Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/gifts).



> Title is a mix between Roy Batty's "tears in the rain" speech, and the Prince's "time is an ocean in a storm" speech.

I would like to be able to tell you I still remember which death was my first; the one that would have truly killed me, had I not been in possession of the dagger. Unfortunately, I cannot. They have all blurred together.

_I was running along the wall to avoid a spiked pit filling the hallway, and my foot slipped, ever so slightly, but just enough to rob me of the momentum that was keeping me going, sending me falling downwards, just out of reach of any contact with the wall to arrest my fall, to land, impaled, upon the spikes below. It happened so fast, I barely had time to press upon the dagger before the life drained from me._

_Mere moments later, having unspun the threads of time so that I was still running along the wall, I attempted to compensate for the slick patch ahead I knew would shortly cost me my life, and instead moved the wrong leg, sending myself once again back into the pit below, before reversing the flow of the hourglass again._

It would be tempting to claim that that is where my madness began. Man is not meant to live and die and live again. The agony of constant painful deaths, over and over, would be enough to drive most men mad. And, perhaps, it was indeed the cause of my insanity.

_I was fighting three guards who had been transformed by the sands into monsters. Despite being outnumbered, the grains that infected them had robbed them of their intellect, allowing me to gradually overpower them through superior tactics. I grew impatient, and in my overconfidence attempted to finish the battle faster by pushing on the offense, instead of waiting for their predictable attacks to miss and riposting; while I took the first two down, draining the sands that animated them back into the dagger took just long enough that the last one was able to slash me across my back, a blow that would have proven fatal before my hand squeezed upon the dagger’s hilt._

The sands were only unleashed upon the world for a short time; a day, perhaps two. Despite that, it felt far longer for me. Not only was I reliving the events of the day in constant bursts, as I reversed time again and again in an attempt to find the safe path through the storm that they wrought upon their surroundings, but every moment was a battle. In my childhood, I spent many long afternoons reading poetry, taking walks through the hanging gardens, or training with my father’s generals. They were always calming and soothing, with only minimal stress or pressure upon myself through my youth. There was no one to count on during the nightmare in Azad, no friendly guards to stand by my side and watch my back, constant threats as I was forced to fight for my survival for days without the chance to rest. The madness I feel could easily trace its way back to those frantic hours.

_As I was passing through the outside of the palace, I was climbing along a narrow ledge in a sheer cliff face when one of the giant birds of the Sultan's menagerie flew down out of the sky from nowhere. It was only able to strike me once, but that once was enough to make me lose my grip and fall. I can only assume I would have died when I had struck the ground, since it was so far down I could not see it._

What makes the Dahaka so terrifying is that it is unceasing. It is easily outpaced, not only because of its slow speed, but because it must detour around water as well. But, once it is chasing you, it will never stop. For seven years I managed to stay ahead of it, but it was always there, At the back of my mind was always the knowledge that it was coming for me; that if I stayed still too long, it could catch up with me while I rested. It is hard to sleep, knowing that it could be just over the horizon, one hill away from catching you in the middle of the night.

_My own father was not spared the indignity of being turned into one of the mindless creatures that the sand created. He was surrounded by a number of guards, and while the guards were dispatched easily enough, I continued to hesitate to absorb the creature that had once been my father. It showed no such hesitation towards me however, and when I fatally realized that there was no hope of recovery for him, I was finally able to bring myself to destroy him as well._

The infection of the sands that I experienced during my return to Babylon was obviously what brought this darkness inside me to the surface, but it could have been a result of any of those causes, or even all of them. But if I am honest with myself, the darkness was always there inside me. It is the pride that drove me to break into the Maharaja’s treasure vault and steal the dagger, the pride that drove me to unleash the sands in the first place. My hubris, my vanity, that led me to believe I could change fate, that led me to the Isle of Time in the first place. It has always been there since I was a small child.

_The giant sand tiger._

Just because I have faced the darkness within myself, and come to terms with it, does not mean that it is gone. The darkness, the embodiment of my pride, my arrogance, hubris, fear, vanity, and selfishness, was there in the first place for the sands to bring out. The people of Persia may believe me to be solely their hero; the savior who appeared in their hour of need to defeat the Vizier. And while that is part of the story, it is not the whole of the story. I still have those traits within me, even if I have overcome them and learned to be a better person in the effort. Let the others believe what they may, but I would have you know the truth of things. I would not have secrets between us. One of the lessons my father managed to teach me, in the impetuousness of my youth, is that honesty is one of the most important things between those who are to be wed.

 


End file.
